Spiegel

Spiegel Inc., the 100-year-old mail-order marketer, won court approval of a plan to exit bankruptcy that gives ownership of the company to Commerzbank AG and other unsecured creditors. Those creditors are owed more than $1.3 billion and will get all the equity in the reorganized company, recovering roughly 91 cents on the dollar, compared with a national average of 40 cents. They would have gotten 30 cents on the dollar if Spiegel had liquidated, company lawyer James Garrity said. Shareholders will receive nothing.

A 78-year-old doctor is going to prison for his role in a health care fraud conspiracy, according to U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer in Miami. Dr. Jerry A. Spiegel, of Boynton Beach , was sentenced on Thursday to 3 1/2 years in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, the loss of his medical license, and the payment of $880,958 in restitution, according to federal court records. Spiegel was found guilty last year of conspiring to commit health care fraud while working as a medical director at three Miami-Dade County HIV/AIDS-infusion clinics, according to court documents.

Spiegel`s, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based catalog retailer, will open its first outlet store outside the Chicago area today at Sawgrass Mills shopping mall in Sunrise. With labels such as Bill Blass and DKNY, the store hopes to be popular with working women. "We expect they`re going to be our bread and butter," store manager Dennis Patron said. The store also sells men`s clothing and home furnishings. Shoppers at a preview opening on Tuesday gave the store good reviews. "I think it`s beautiful," said Jane Brinson of Fort Lauderdale.

A retired obstetrician was jailed over the weekend after the FBI arrested him on charges of submitting almost $1 million in false claims to Medicare for obsolete HIV therapy that patients didn't need or receive. Jerry A. Spiegel, 77, of Boynton Beach, was released Monday on a $100,000 bond after he was charged with defrauding the federal health care program for the elderly and disabled. Spiegel's clinic, R&M Services Center Corp. in Miami Lakes, was paid more than $425,000 by Medicare between September and December 2008, according to an FBI affidavit.

If you think it`s tough shopping for one house or apartment, how would you like to have to shop for millions of them? Chicagoan Betti Rosenberg loves it. Rosenberg, a former interior designer, gave up a design practice to become a full-time shopper for Spiegel catalog. She now spends her time touring home furnishings markets from New York and Los Angeles to Italy, West Germany and Hong Kong. Rosenberg, her staff and merchandise managers from the five home store divisions select all the sofas, chairs, tables, curtains, blankets, towels, toasters and VCRs that are sold through Spiegel catalogs.

Retired Hialeah Det. Robert Spiegel remembers it was a Sunday, his day off, and he had been fishing. When the call came from the station, he was outside washing down the boat. Spiegel was sunburned and dead tired. "I didn`t want to go in, but I did," the retired detective said on Thursday. A man named Curtis Blythe Jr., 34, had been found murdered, his head bashed in. Blythe, who vanished two days earlier, had been rolled in carpet and stuffed in the back seat of his wife`s car. The day was Aug. 8, 1971.

A retired obstetrician was jailed over the weekend after the FBI arrested him on charges of submitting almost $1 million in false claims to Medicare for obsolete HIV therapy that patients didn't need or receive. Jerry A. Spiegel, 77, of Boynton Beach, was released Monday on a $100,000 bond after he was charged with defrauding the federal health care program for the elderly and disabled. Spiegel's clinic, R&M Services Center Corp. in Miami Lakes, was paid more than $425,000 by Medicare between September and December 2008, according to an FBI affidavit.

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin faces an unusual schedule in his civil trial to determine whether he sexually abused a man 17 years ago, but it could work to his advantage, according to attorneys and legal experts familiar with his case. The schedule set by U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel gives Bernardin the quick trial he has requested since Steven Cook sued him last month. It also gives Bernardin an opportunity to vindicate himself - even if Cook's lawsuit is ultimately ruled invalid under Ohio law. Spiegel last week set a May 9 trial date on allegations that Bernardin and another priest, the Rev. Ellis Harsham, sexually abused Cook when he was a high school student in a pre-seminary program in Cincinnati.

MIAMI -- Poor Ivana Trump. If it`s not one thing, it`s another. First, there was Marla Maples. Then, on Tuesday, a New York judge granted Ivana Trump`s divorce from the Donald, chastising the troubled tycoon for "cruel and inhuman" behavior. Now, a Dade County woman has been charged with using Ivana Trump`s Citibank MasterCard number to buy $1,570 worth of clothes from the Spiegel catalog. Lurena Finlayson, 19, worked as a guest service agent at the Doral Saturnia Spa, where Trump stayed from Nov. 23 to 26. That`s apparently where Finlayson got Trump`s credit-card number, Metro-Dade police said.

Pamela and James McCarthy planned on going to a family gathering for Mother's Day, but they didn't make it. Instead, Pamela McCarthy spent the day in the hospital, after delivering James Arthur McCarthy Jr. at 3:30 a.m. Sunday. "That kind of put a wrench into the plans," Pamela McCarthy said from her hospital bed at West Boca Medical Center. This was the second child for the McCarthys, who live in Boynton Beach. Their daughter, Heather, is 9. The Mother's Day baby came as a surprise for the family.

The leader of the Palm Beach Theater Guild, a group fighting to preserve the 1957 Royal Poinciana Playhouse, said it will ask owner Sidney Spiegel to lease the building now that a judge ruled it must remain an arts venue and cannot be demolished. On Tuesday, Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge David Crow ended a long-running dispute between Spiegel, the Town of Palm Beach and the Theater Guild over the validity of a 1979 agreement requiring the property to remain an arts venue. Spiegel said the theater, which went dark in May 2004, is no longer profitable and he wanted to tear it down to build a luxury hotel.

Spiegel Inc., the 100-year-old mail-order marketer, won court approval of a plan to exit bankruptcy that gives ownership of the company to Commerzbank AG and other unsecured creditors. Those creditors are owed more than $1.3 billion and will get all the equity in the reorganized company, recovering roughly 91 cents on the dollar, compared with a national average of 40 cents. They would have gotten 30 cents on the dollar if Spiegel had liquidated, company lawyer James Garrity said. Shareholders will receive nothing.

Your first impression after diving on the Spiegel Grove artificial reef for the first time? You're going to want to dive it several more times to fully appreciate the 510-foot decommissioned Navy ship. That's probably not surprising considering it took eight years to get Spiegel Grove from a Virginia storage facility to the bottom of the ocean in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The ship arrived here on May 14. Explosives were supposed to send Spiegel Grove to the bottom on May 17, but the ship sank on its own just hours before the explosives were put inside.

Officials are confident they have under control an oil leak that has prevented a retired Navy ship, intentionally sunk as an artificial reef, from opening to sport divers off the Florida Keys. Sunday, a day after divers sopped up four gallons of oil from the ceiling of a port-side compartment, they returned to the Spiegel Grove wreck site and were disappointed to see an oil sheen on the surface. An inspection of the same compartment revealed the oil had returned. Divers followed a trail of oil droplets to an adjacent room, the vessel's machine shop utilized as a command center for the scuttling operation, to discover an additional pocket of oil that is thought to be the primary source.

OK, all you kids and young adults living at home with Mom and Dad. You might as well know it now. If you decide to move out don`t expect to come home and find your room the same place you deserted. Empty nesters -- parents whose kids have hit the highway for one reason or another -- are converting their kids` empty rooms to other uses before the kids even begin to realize that things at home might not have been so horrific after all. A recent study, "Re-feathering the Empty Nest," conducted by the Spiegel Home Fashion Monitor found that more than one in four families (27 percent)

Get ready for a picture-perfect Christmas. Video recorders, camcorders, even original art are among the visually oriented, high-impact gifts crammed in the first glossy catalogs for the 1986 holiday season. This may come as a jolt to consumers still struggling to finish back-to- school shopping, but more organized sorts already are plunging into some of the biggest and best Christmas books ever distributed. They are seeing a tantalizing preview of what`s in style for gift-giving this year.

Now that Spiegel Grove finally sank to the bottom of the ocean 6 miles off Key Largo late Monday afternoon, the No. 1 question posed to Key Largo Chamber of Commerce officials Tuesday was whether they would attempt to set the 510-foot Navy ship upright. Salvage efforts succeeded in getting the ship to rest on its side on the bottom. With a beam of 84 feet, Spiegel Grove comes within 46 feet of the surface, making it suitable for novice and experienced divers, as well as for snorkelers.

The salvage effort to roll over Spiegel Grove and have it sit upright on the ocean floor proceeded smoothly but slowly Sunday afternoon. The 510-foot decommissioned Navy landing ship dock sank on its own May 17, hours before it was going to be blown up and sent to the bottom in 130 feet of water to create the world's largest artificial reef. The vessel had been partially filled with water, but before explosives could be placed in the ship, it started sinking and turned upside down, its stern resting on the bottom and its bow protruding about 20 feet above the surface six miles off Key Largo.